Save a Failed Idol’s Life

Chapter 127:

“Who can explain to me what’s going on here?”

As I entered the room with a light heart, a suspicious smell that shouldn’t come out of the dormitory stimulated my nose.

It was the smell of cheese sauce and all kinds of meat toppings that were bad for the body, heated up in the oven.

On top of that, the spicy aroma of fried chicken coated with seasoning spread out.

“Oops, we’re busted.”

“Quick, hide it!”

Hodak, Yi-jun jumped out in front of me as if he was willing to sacrifice himself as a shield.

“We’ve succeeded in blocking him! All agents retreat without letting him take the goods!”

“What are you talking about?”

While Yi-jun was holding me back, Seon-woo quickly stuffed the toppings and cheese that fell on the plate into his mouth.

“I’ll remember Yi-jun hyung’s sacrifice! I’ll remember!”

“What are you talking about, really!”

I swiftly hit Yi-jun’s temple and escaped from his captivity, heading to the dining table.

“Ouch.”

As I stepped into the middle of the kitchen, Kyunghwa was tearing a chicken leg with a humble expression, as if he had given up everything.

“Are you here?”

This kid was only strong-hearted at times like this. I frowned as if I couldn’t believe it.

“You should stop them when they’re going crazy, why are you calmly tearing a chicken leg?”

As if he didn’t expect me to do this, Kyunghwa couldn’t help but be shocked, then he hiccuped, as if to show off.

“I sometimes… want to get drunk too.”

“What nonsense.”

Did this guy drink? I couldn’t believe it, so I looked at the glass next to him, and it was filled with cola instead of beer.

“You get drunk on cola?”

Kyunghwa slowly nodded his head, then dropped the chicken leg he was holding and slammed his head on the table.

I had seen two people who got drunk on cola in my life. But this was the first time I saw someone who lost his taste as if he had a hangover.

“What’s this? Why are you like this?”

When I shook Kyunghwa’s shoulder to wake him up, his body shook like a drunk person.

“What the hell happened?”

I stupidly stood there and kicked Yi-jun’s leg, who was being Seon-woo’s shield, then headed to Seong-won’s room.

“You’re fine.”

After knocking lightly, I opened the door roughly, and Seong-won frowned as if he was annoyed by my sudden entrance.

“Of course.”

“What’s going on with them?”

When I asked as if I was dumbfounded, Seong-won sighed briefly and put down Aeongi, who he was holding in his arms.

Soon, Pposili, who followed me into Seong-won’s room, went to Aeongi’s side and sat down, wagging his tail.

“It’s because of the filming yesterday. Kyunghwa hyung tries not to show it, but he’s mentally weak. And so is Seon-woo.”

Oh Yi-jun didn’t even say anything, as if he didn’t care.

“Kyunghwa hyung said he wanted to eat something to relieve his stress, and Seon-woo was so happy when he ordered it, he didn’t know what to do. He was worried about what would happen if you found out. But he ate well when he ordered it?”

[※‘Son Seong-won’ is telling the truth.]

This is not a lie detector. I sighed as I received the absurd help from Pposili’s added feature.

“You’re just going to watch that?”

He answered shamelessly when I asked him incredulously.

“Do you think he’ll stop if I try to stop him?”

I don’t know about that. Kyunghwa might not know, but Seon-woo was the only member who had a strange wall with Seong-won and found him very difficult.

Except when he felt like he could help.

He just had a wall with everyone, but it seemed inevitable that he would care.

“Anyway…”

In the end, if I had to find the culprit of this situation, it was the broadcast station bastards who played negative citizen interviews in front of the parties.

It looked like the other teams had gone mental too.

Floss seemed to be quite shocked by the fan ranking as well.

I wondered how they were holding up when they didn’t get along with each other.

‘Of course, I have no intention of contacting them.’

I thought he would rely on me if I poked him a few times, remembering how Hwijin suddenly complained to me.

‘Depending on the situation, it wouldn’t be bad to make Hwijin depend on me.’

There was no immediate benefit to doing that. It would be a relief if it didn’t bother me.

I figured out the whole story and left Seong-won’s room and went back to the kitchen. Seon-woo was diligently putting the leftover chicken in a ziplock bag and got caught by me.

“Put it down. I’m telling you nicely.”

“Uh…okay…”

Seon-woo crouched down and put down the chicken.

I couldn’t help but laugh at the sight.

They were all stressed enough to do this kind of escapade.

From now on, there was only a forced march until the day of the stage, so I hoped I could help them somehow.

‘The best thing I can do is feed them well.’

They had a chicken pizza party among themselves. I frowned with a slight sense of betrayal.

‘I should ask the nearby delivery companies to blacklist them.’

Honestly, it was a bit of a waste. But I didn’t want to take it to my mouth because I had eaten too much delicious food at home.

I snatched all the junk food from Seon-woo’s hand and poured it into the food waste disposal.

And a few days later. The day I finally stood on stage for the first time came.

I had practiced countless times in the practice room, but this was the first time I rehearsed on stage.

The main performance was scheduled to take place in front of the audience who had applied in advance tomorrow afternoon.

The total number of audience members was 120. Each team had 20 people selected, so there was no worry that the cheering would be biased to one team.

‘But I’m a little worried about standing in front of an audience who doesn’t know us well.’

I hadn’t had a chance to sing in front of such a diverse fandom, except for the last live encore.

I searched for the despairing articles of other singers and my fingertips hardened.

The so-called Ten Minute. It was an event that happened more than 10 years ago, but there were still fans who had hostility towards us inside the Floss fandom.

If I told Kyunghwa or Yi-jun, they would freak out and say that was a long time ago and why I was worried about it in 2021.

‘But I can’t help worrying because there’s always a chance.’

I couldn’t believe how nervous I was.

I had prepared for the stage with all my best and the live broadcast had spoiled the concept to a positive response.

Since it was still before the airing, I couldn’t reveal any major information, but when I said it was sports-related, the chat room was filled with screams of approval.

This was definitely… a better concept in terms of popularity. A faint regret came over me, but it was too late.

All I had to think about now was getting into the top three and releasing the song.

‘The label issue is almost settled. Let’s just focus on the stage.’

I didn’t know how things would go between Hong and Cheon, the president and the chairman, but that was a concern.

‘They didn’t outsource this to some planning specialist company, did they?’

Thanks to the perfect three-year business plan I sent, which made Cheon doubt if I made it myself, I didn’t have much to worry about for now.

Hong’s side also had a bad investment, so they would have a hard time refusing Cheon’s proposal.

It wasn’t a bad offer, since I wasn’t completely leaving the company and they would cover the operating costs.

‘If I had my way, I’d cut off the IP fees and everything.’

As long as I wasn’t going to disappear after a day or two of activity, it was better to proceed slowly and steadily. I would cut them off someday.

As I was lost in thought, someone suddenly came up behind me.

“Ise… ”

Wow, that startled me. I turned around at the eerie voice from behind and saw Hwijin, who was hiding behind makeup but noticeably pale.

“Hwijin? No, hyung.”

I corrected my address, conscious of the busy staff around me.

“Ah. How have you been?”

He looked like he hadn’t been doing well. I could see why. When I was planning the show, I saw some clips of Floss’s show as a reference and they all looked like they had pride.

It must have been rigged, but the program side had executed Floss so blatantly that they all must have been furious.

I didn’t know why Floss was here, but they were making a fuss like ‘Why do we have to do this?’ ‘Can’t we quit now?’ I could vividly imagine the chaos.

As the leader, he had to persuade them to participate in the planning and practice, so he must have been stressed out.

“I’ve been doing well.”

I couldn’t say bluntly that you don’t look like it, so I trailed off.

“I… had a really hard time…”

He didn’t say much, but his fatigue seemed to affect me as well.

“But there was no problem with the planning or the stage, right?”

I asked him a crucial point, just in case, and he answered with a soulless eye.

“Yeah… somehow…”

He said that, but with nine proud people together, they would pull off the stage perfectly.

I gave him a faint consolation for his disguise and glanced at him.

“Don’t worry too much, you’ll do well.”

I patted Hwijin’s shoulder and he nodded slowly without energy.

“Yeah… you too, fighting.”

I glanced at the Floss members who were waiting. The stage order was decided by a lottery in advance: Floss – P2CK – Climax – Vesper – AtoX – Playground.

It didn’t seem like there was any advantage to the order.

It was enough to make me wonder if this was also rigged somehow, starting with Floss and ending with Playground.

As soon as Hwijin returned to his group, trembling, Yi-jun and Kyunghwa rushed towards me.

“What did the Floss leader say?”

“Did you talk about any strategy or something?”

Our delinquents, who had recovered their mental state somewhat after the last incident, asked me with sparkling eyes.

They seemed to have high expectations, but there was nothing substantial to say.

“He didn’t say much. They just looked like they had a hard time too.”

Then Seong-won snorted as if it was obvious.

“Of course they did. There were quite a few members who made a fuss because they didn’t like the treatment they got over there.”

Everyone nodded in agreement, as if it was clear without seeing.

“But don’t look down on them. They may have had a tough process, but they’re not an easy opponent.”

Wheejin, who came to me to suck up, said he had a hard time, but he didn’t say he was not confident.

“We’ll see in 15 minutes when the Floss rehearsal starts.”

Kyunghwa answered, looking up at the staff who were adjusting the stage equipment for Floss.

What kind of stage would the Floss in crisis show us? I was half excited and half worried, when the sign that everything was ready came.

The lights on the stage went out all at once, and the Floss members went up one by one.

It was time to see with my own eyes if their high pride had any basis or not.